Viable builds that aren't boring

I have tried a lot of different builds. Some viable, some not. But a common trend I am noticing among viable builds is that there exists a lack of spells / skills in most viable builds.

E.G You make a build around spamming Ice spear.
E.G You make a build around spamming Flicker strike.
E.G You make a build around spamming Arc.

But is there a build where you get to use a decent variety of spells? Seems like there aren't many (or any actually).

E.G You make a build around using Fireball + Flame surge + Flameblast. Such a build wouldn't make sense, and many of those spells would be redundent. And you would benefit more from filling sockets with passive gems like Cast when Hit / Curses.

Yet the game gets boring when all you do is spam 1 (maybe 2) spells over and over for 70-80 levels. Is this really all the game will even boil down to? or am I just not looking hard enough for viable builds.

Well you could try making a melee build. They require far more microing. And since they are usually weapon dependent instead of gem levels, you can switch around your skills a lot limited only by weapon type and chroming requirements. A lot of builds utilise combos like using flicker between groups and for repositioning or curse on hit and then a main attack for killing stuff. It increases clear speed and makes stuff a lot more fun.

Boring is pretty subjective.

If you want to use lots of different skills, try summoner, either with raging spirits or regular.
Zombies, specters, srs, curses, totem with arc or skellies, vaal haste, movement skill, random attack to proc equilibrium, auras, convocation, desecrate, bone/flesh offering.
You'll have your skill bar full and use them all.

But for some, summoners are boring, so I don't know...

Yes, most builds boil down to using one or two skills, you're required to destroy insane amounts of monsters quickly in endgame so you can't really afford to muck around with it too much, you want to keep it simple (and, admittedly, boring). Trigger gems did nothing to improve the issue, quite the opposite.

There aren't many builds that feel their action bar is too cramped, indeed, but summoners come close. You keep your zombies on the ready in case they die, you have skeletons on one button, you got your curses, convocation for pet management, desecrate for corpse spawning, and also flesh and bone offering, depending on situation. Many players stay away from summoners because the gameplay feels too involved.

But yes, even though you get so busy summoners still feel passive.
So I'm levelling a summoner hybrid at the moment, the point of the whole thing is making summons as tanky as possible so you can stay back and use a 2H weapon combined with an attack that has good range, like ground slam or spectral throw. When you spot an opening you rush in and dominate a group of weakened enemies. You keep your summoning simple but still have a good skill variety, permasummons, main attack skill, dominating blow, animate weapon, skellies...

Anyway, I had a similar build before, it's fun and can tackle most of the content. Even though it rounds up really late it's among the easiest builds to level. You could say the working of this build is less dependent on gear and more on mindset, you just have to find the right measure of courage and cowardice :)

It all comes down to the Item Socket/Link System in PoE.

You only have 1-2 5-6 Linked items, so you can only have 1-2 powerful skills.

Try swapping around the main skill, but a build with 2 active skills is not optimal.

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raics wrote:

Yes, most builds boil down to using one or two skills, you're required to destroy insane amounts of monsters quickly in endgame so you can't really afford to muck around with it too much, you want to keep it simple (and, admittedly, boring). Trigger gems did nothing to improve the issue, quite the opposite.

There aren't many builds that feel their action bar is too cramped, indeed, but summoners come close. You keep your zombies on the ready in case they die, you have skeletons on one button, you got your curses, convocation for pet management, desecrate for corpse spawning, and also flesh and bone offering, depending on situation. Many players stay away from summoners because the gameplay feels too involved.

But yes, even though you get so busy summoners still feel passive.
So I'm levelling a summoner hybrid at the moment, the point of the whole thing is making summons as tanky as possible so you can stay back and use a 2H weapon combined with an attack that has good range, like ground slam or spectral throw. When you spot an opening you rush in and dominate a group of weakened enemies. You keep your summoning simple but still have a good skill variety, permasummons, main attack skill, dominating blow, animate weapon, skellies...

Anyway, I had a similar build before, it's fun and can tackle most of the content. Even though it rounds up really late it's among the easiest builds to level. You could say the working of this build is less dependent on gear and more on mindset, you just have to find the right measure of courage and cowardice :)

I thought about this. But I do kind of feel as though summoner play style is a bit less active. You summon stuff and then that stuff kills things. No aiming, no target prioritizing etc.

But that is an interesting build idea. I can see how it is the best of both worlds.

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Peterlerock wrote:

It all comes down to the Item Socket/Link System in PoE.

You only have 1-2 5-6 Linked items, so you can only have 1-2 powerful skills.

Try swapping around the main skill, but a build with 2 active skills is not optimal.

This is something that is generally on my mind when I think of a build.

E.G I could fill 4 sock helm with a cool second active skill... or I could fill it with passives like Herald of Thunder.

But TBH I am not even sure of too many good dual active interactions. Seems to work okay with melee (e.g single target skill + multi-target one). But many of the games abilities cover both anyway (or can be made to with supports).

I guess POE is meant to be similar to Diablo 2 (which you did tend to spam 1-2 abilities). But maybe this simply isn't the kind of game that suits me anymore. I usually prefer something with a bit more variety.

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KnyazSunny wrote:

I thought about this. But I do kind of feel as though summoner play style is a bit less active. You summon stuff and then that stuff kills things. No aiming, no target prioritizing etc.

But that is an interesting build idea. I can see how it is the best of both worlds.

Yes, I personally find a pure summoner kinda boring too. Fortunately, a summoner takes well to mixing with other playstyles, it's easiest to build a caster/summoner with spells that require stationary play which is by nature vulnerable and requires tankiness (flameblast, firestorm, incinerate...), but attackers can work too if you're prepared to put in some extra effort.

The weakness of such hybrids is they rely a lot on their summons but typically don't have the full summon investment that a pure summoner would have, enabling his pets to reliably survive shitstorms. So, although most of the content is easier and clear speed arguably higher, enemies which are traditionally jerks to summoners hit them extra hard.

But, as they say, it's hard to measure fun factor, so if you dig active playstyle with a dash of micromanagement you can get a nice bit of mileage out of this one if you don't mind hitting a few snags.

Many call it sort of a noobtrap, once you have a first look at the game it seems like a perfect playground for hybrid building, however it's not. It takes really narrow focusing if you want your build to work.

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raics wrote:

Many call it sort of a noobtrap, once you have a first look at the game it seems like a perfect playground for hybrid building, however it's not. It takes really narrow focusing if you want your build to work.

This depends on what standards you have for a "build that works".

I think it is probably not horribly inefficent to equip a Crown of Eyes and a Doryani's Sceptre, focus on spell damage and elemental damage in the tree and gear, then have a 4L spell and a 6L elemental melee attack.
Such a build could probably beat most maps and would be as "hybrid" as it gets, using both casting and melee.

Or you "waste" 4-8 skillpoints on "burning damage" in a melee build, and add a Searing Bond totem for extra damage.
Of course those skillpoints are not spent in melee and life, but would it be that bad?

Or you say "I only want to beat merciless Dominus", then pretty much anything you can click in the skilltree that has some sort of "theme" and "logic" is "viable".
A lot of "" in there. ;)

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Peterlerock wrote:

This depends on what standards you have for a "build that works".

Oh, my standards aren't terribly high, I'd call anything that can do 70+ maps in reasonable comfort 'viable'. But for the sake of standardization, let's call a hybrid build 'good' if it can clear content with comparable ease, when measured up with 'straight' version.

I agree it can be done with crown of eyes but that would be about the same as saying that '1H weapon + empty hand' style exists because we got charan's sword line. The situation with unarmed is a little better because devs also designated certain skills to work with unarmed style which probably makes it officially recognized.

Probably the biggest objection to the whole thing is pointlessness. In most arpgs that allow it, you want to mix your melee char with a caster because they offer AoE or ranged dominance which can be a huge asset, as melee skills have poor AoE or none at all. Another advantage are buffs, which are usually reserved for casters.

And, in PoE, well, you can technically make anything, true, but it's astonishing how much effort went into making sure we have no reason to. Attack skills have comparable or even better aoe than most spells and buffs are available to everybody and his uncle, as stat requirements are more than trivial. And there's also the already mentioned 'one skill' problem, we usually have room to properly support only one main skill, which is AoE and outdamages our 4L single target skill making it distinctly meh, except for variety.

You know, when you make an attack/spell hybrid in another game you feel like you cheated the house a bit, in PoE you feel like you're gimping yourself on purpose.